Well-written informative article, thank you.
The comments on this page illustrate the deeper problem - there are a lot of kind, decent, modern people in Hungary, but there is still a very large and aggressive minority of idiots who begin sentences with 'The problem with Jews is...'

The important thing not many noticed is the response of the Hungarian government. It was basically a one paragraph statement that they don't approve Gyongyosi's suggestion. The same paragraph they release each time Jobbik has an outrageous comment. But the Prime Minister doesn't give a speech and sends one of his lowest ranking official to the anti Nazi rally. So basically FIDESZ silently legitimises the Nazi principles and this is what Jobbik is trying to achieve. They couldn't care less about the security of Hungary or the Palestinians. Apparently antisemitic propaganda gets you a lot of votes in 2012 Hungary and Jobbik and FIDESZ are fighting about these votes.

Just to mention, that there are several Arab MPs in Israel who openly cooperate with groups seeking the destruction of Israel yet they are still allowed to sit in parliament.

You're lying so blatantly that you must be a supporter of the Hungarian Socialist Party, busted from power in 2010 big time, or Együtt2014 (the pre-party of the ex-Socialist prime minister Bajnai) or 'Democratic Coalition' (the party of the fallen ex-Socialist prime minister Gyurcsány)

Your comment about Arab MPs is right but to blame them or label them with act of destruction - ? does present not address principal relationship between rules and overruled or ruled- misruled? Was not Glasnost and Perestroika in the same precinct what you refer to? About fate of the Hungarian Jews now and then ,it is for us difficult to reconcile Haute politic collateral-ity or trades - Himmler wanted to trade Hungarian Jews for 10 thousand goods vehicles what he intended to use only on the Eastern front ,and Rabbi Meyer in 1944 Switzerland who suppressed Haganah operative effort to mobilize world to fate of Hungarian Jews by utterance - their martyrdom would bring to world Jews better good-goods?. Just leafing through American Jews - 400 years of uneasy encounter. Does Obama or Rahm Emanuel agree with it ?What do you really want from Host nations and countries ? As in the Independence day script - to die out ? Get real and bear the words by giving them human meaning. Do not use word antisemitic - it put conflict on whole Middle east - call spade spade . Muslims or Arabs are nice cultures of their own - have nothing to do with Hungarian democracy or Register of Jews . Israel has on a register all non jews - do you have a problem with it ?

The Nazis didn't want to trade any Jews. They wanted to kill them all. They didn't build Auschwitz to be a warehouse. Where did you read it? In Abu Mazan's holocaust denial phd study?
Israel has the national registry so that Arabs are not drafted to the army. But that doesn't bother them to take all the welfare payments from Israel and meanwhile try to eliminate the country.
Take a look at how Arab countries treat women, gays and minorities and tell me with a straight face it's a nice culture.
Maybe you are not antisemitic just plain stupid.

You've got a lot to learn about history... (Or you actually do know about these things but you're lying.)

This is only one counter-example (there were more!):

"The Haavara Agreement (Hebrew: הסכם העברה Translit.: heskem haavara Translated: "transfer agreement") was signed on 25 August 1933 after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany (die Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland), the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the orders of the Jewish Agency, an official executive agency in then Palestine) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany. The agreement was designed to help facilitate the emigration of German Jews to Palestine"

Martin to your insightful reply - about my sources - Yes I read my information from Michael Bar Zohar works and others as for example murder of Jewish representative who was trialed at Israel acquited and murdered by some relative of those who were not part of Himmler's trade in. Some movie was made from his life story of World Jewish congress plenipotentinary - for this trade deal Adolf Eichmann had to be silenced and he a Jew murdered. Things are not so simple as you would like us to agree with. About that Holocaust denial study - what is the reason for the so called Holocaust 1942- was it not related with The declaration of the global Jewish Holy war(Jihad) by Samuel Untermayer on 7.August 1933 to German speaking nation in the New York Times ? with words we Will starved them to submition , we will ....., we will .... Why do you and your lot try to make all others to do agree , cheer - provide you with aliby to your Judaic nonsence for chosen people and superiority of intelect- (while all education reformers as Hook and Rahm are formerly Sionist terrorists who by producing system for making stupid "clever"created this intelectual quagmire- pool for Facebooks )have you not noticed that all other nations animosity or disagreements are natural in origin - only Jewish one is integral with denial of Nature to others ? As Vladimir Iliic Lenon said Learn ,learn, learn ! but from whom when all argument is based on profanity of lies, subverted in 2000 years of Talmud.It make stupid ones on both sides. I fully agree with in Hungary do it Hungarian way and foreign loyalty judaic Visitors treat as Visitors - and compared to Israel situation towards Palestinians - they are The people of the Land. Jews are not .Jacksons ammendment to USA -USSR treaty 1960-is that all Jews can freely emigrate from USSR to USA - what for ? If so then do not be surprised when America will try liberate itself from Jews as Germany did in 1933 - just wait who and in which Bejjing Newspaper declare Jewish holy war against USA- isn't it now in already in Singaporean Wall street journal version?. As father of protestanism Luther said - they are People of the Lie. For it we have now economic crises - they sold to fools their Lie about victory of Capitalistic form of life and some tried to get rich on it without living life straight. As Marx said -Everything relates to everything.Even my ignorance and your inborn know how. Dark ages are here and Gheto of Israel ocupied territories - and Palestina with separating Wall is making your personal horizon -limit.Thank to Hitler you have your Promised land so leave Hungary to Hungarians.

This was not about money. It was a trade of the lives of 600,000 Jews for 1500. For saving his family and friends Kastner avoided warning the Jewish community about their coming deportation and execution. He was no better than the nazis.

You proved that one corrupt Hungarian Jew was willing to trade his community. That means nothing about the Zionist leadership that knew exactly who the Nazis were. Your reasoning is pretty much like the Nazis so chances are you are a Nazi.

There is nothing wrong with Zionism. All it says is that Jews should have a homeland in Israel. This is a lot more moderate than the IRA murdering English civilians.

You claim something, I refute it with facts, you try to explain it away. You claim something again, I refute it with facts and you try to explain it away. It's very Talmudic indeed.

Anyway, it's pointless to try to have a discussion whith someone who says "there is nothing wrong with Zionism" and whose chief "argument" is I'm a Nazi just because I pointed out facts you were deeply embarrassed about. Bye.

I'm no Nazi, of course, but there's no denying you're a Zionist. And Zionism is the ideology to maintain an apartheid regime in Israel which brutalizes millions of Palestinians each day.
Like British MP Sir Gerald Kaufman said: Israel is acting like the Nazis in Gaza.

"The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."

About his own family experience he said: "My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza."

I'm glad to see the furor over the suggestion of ethnic profiling in Hungary. I hope that the US and Israel will do more than complain: I hope they will lead by example in stopping their own profiling of Muslims as a "national security risk". Profiling any human being is equally objectionable, be they Jew or Muslim.

When a criminal walks out on the street holding a hostage, and the police shoot and kill the hostage, in civilized countries we blame the police. If you pull the trigger, you are responsible for killing the hostage.

But clearly you, marting, don't understand this, and just want to justify your brand of racism. Sorry for wasting my time. I hope you have a life experience that causes you to regain your humanity someday.

In WWII some parts of human resources were profiled up to 9 months before their day of birth. You can believe that today it goes as in Hitler Germany at least 3 generation back - but Humanity and our truth is impossible to profile by KGB or Google guide lines. But many people make from it nice patriotic living . Daddy what have you been doing in the office today ? Just labeled some anti-goons as Homeland security risks sweetie.. when you will grow up you will do it too... Nice, we can do now that dirty job by Facebook..

Let me give examples to highlight the differences between criticism of Israel and antisemitism.

If you say that you do not like the Israeli government policy giving less money to Arab communities of Israel than to Jewish communities, that is criticism of Israel, if this is based on facts.

When you (and Abbas) say that Israel has been Judaizing Jerusalem, that is antisemitism, because it is based on myths. In fact, in 1968, Jews were 3/4 of the population, while they make up just 2/3 now.

So antisemitism always acts on and stirs up irrational fear or hatred of Jews.

If you say you want to create a 23rd Arab state, that is one thing. But if you (like the UN) keep trashing Israel all the time, that is antisemitism. What about a Kurdish state for the 34 million Kurds? What about a Basques state, a Berber state. Don't they deserve at least one state as well?

When bishop Tutu calls Israel a racist, apartheid state - that is antisemitism. Go to Israel, and you can see that white-skinned, brown-skinned and black-skinned people intermingle and intermarry freely.

Ever heard about the letter of 27 Israeli rabbi's wives to young Israeli maidens -about mating preferences? If no then go on You Tube and ask for :" See how Israel teach their children about the world. " To do it Iran we all are going ape from it.

"When bishop Tutu calls Israel a racist, apartheid state - that is antisemitism" - your comment. This is not antisemitism - apartheid is a political reality. Many very respectable people use apartheid to describe the situation in Israel. Some of these comments are:

"Yossi Paritzky, a former Israeli minister, has used the apartheid analogy to describe a proposed bill that banned non-Jewish citizens of Israel from purchasing land privately owned by the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The JNF has long insisted that its lands be sold only to Jews, due to the fact that the land was purchased with money from Jewish donors for the purpose of settling Jews in Israel. Noam Chomsky, American professor of linguistics and political activist, has stated that "if you look at the land laws, and decode it all, what it amounts to is that about ninety percent of the land inside Israel is reserved to what's called 'people of Jewish race, religion and origin'... That's in the contract between the state of Israel and the Jewish National Fund, which is a non-Israeli organization, which, however, by various bureaucratic arrangements, administers the land... All of this is covered up enough so that nobody can say, "Look, here's an apartheid law."

"Henry Siegman, a former national director of the American Jewish Congress, has stated that the network of settlements in the West Bank has created an "irreversible colonial project" aimed to foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. According to Siegman, in accomplishing this Israel has "crossed the threshold from "the only democracy in the Middle East" to the only apartheid regime in the Western world". Siegman argues that denial of both self-determination and Israeli citizenship to Palestinians amounts to a "double disenfranchisement", which when based on ethnicity amounts to racism. Siegman continues to state that reserving democracy for privileged citizens and keeping others "behind checkpoints and barbed wire fences" is the opposite of democracy. John Dugard has compared Israel's confiscation of Palestinian farms and land, and destruction of Palestinian homes, to similar policies of Apartheid-era South Africa."

"In 1973 the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.[41] The ICSPCA defines the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group ... over another racial group ... and systematically oppressing them." In 2002 the crime of apartheid was further defined by Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as encompassing inhumane acts such as torture, murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, or persecution of an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or other grounds, "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." "In a 2007 report, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard stated that "elements of the Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law" and suggested that the "legal consequences of a prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and apartheid" be put to the International Court of Justice.[44] In 2009 South Africa's statutory research agency the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) published a report stating that "the State of Israel exercises control in the [Occupied Palestinian Territories] with the purpose of maintaining a system of domination by Jews over Palestinians and that this system constitutes a breach of the prohibition of apartheid." The report was written by a team of international law experts and scholars and does not represent an official position of the HSRC. In 2010 United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard A. Falk reported that criminal apartheid features of the Israeli occupation had been entrenched in the three years since the report of his predecessor, John Dugard. In March 2011, Falk said, "The continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians is creating an intolerable situation ... [and] can only be described in its cumulative impact as a form of ethnic cleansing."

And this is what an eminent Israeli journalist (Noam Sheizaf) writes about the general acceptance of apartheid by the Israeli public itself:

"There was an interesting part in the survey about the use of the term apartheid......58 per cent supported the use of the term, and 50 percent said apartheid is practiced in a few or in many fields. If the use of the term apartheid is anti-Semitic, as some of Israel’s PR agencies claim – then most Israelis are guilty of anti-Semitism."

In live in the South of Poland close to the Slovak border (until 2008) and I remember a conversation I once had with an elderly woman who lived (as a child during the war) in a house very close to the railway station through which "Jewish-Hungarian trasports to Auschwitz" had been organized. Twelve hours before such transport was due to arrive at the station, the house in which she lived was swarmed by German soldiers with specially trained dogs and no-one could leave the house for the whole day. And such trasports took place every two or three days! Today, as an old person (if she is living, I had only a casual conversation with her a few years ago so I don't know), she can't come to terms with this horrible genocide which took place just next to her house, at the neighbouring railway station, minutely surrounded by the German soldiers with barking dogs. Now less than one hundred years have elapsed since these tragico-criminal events during world war two! There are still people who remember these German soldiers with the barking dogs who watched the transports of Hungarian Jews straight to the gas chambers in Auschwitz! Hundreds of thousands if not even millions!

As you heard I have seen too, the Israeli defense force and boarder patrol treating the West bank Palestinians population at the Check point crossing and it is exactly as your Polish witness would remember. Who brings it on us all?

retired
I live in Hungary, in an area that is very touristy and I would like to think populated mostly by well educated people who have full excess to worldwide social media, so they are aware of happenings around the world at a moments notice. I'm sure that they are fully aware of what the impact of the sort of statements that were made in parliament would have. After reading a few of the comments below, made by others that live here in Hungary, I'm not surprised by their attempt to dismiss the Jobbik MPs speech as a MISUNDERSTANDING, or just being blown out of proportions by the media, which of course is controlled by Jews, except in Hungary, where it is controlled by the government. Anti-Semitism IS rife in Hungary, sadly, it is evident in the day to day conversations especially in more rural areas, and as I've already said even around my neck of the woods. Forgetting for a moment about such things as the Holocaust or the situation in Gaza, it is, speaking as a Jew, just plain insulting and degrading to be classified as a possible risk to Hungary's National Security, because of my religion?? The comments locally that I hear all too often a "Filthy Jews" "Curva Jews" in reference to all the ills of the financial situation not only in Hungary but throughout the world, and of course the IMF and EU commission are both run by Zionist Filthy Jews. Hungary is a beautiful country that deserves to be seen in a far better light for so very many reasons, but these sort of outburst by a hateful ignorant few will paint this country in a very sad hew.

The problem in our part of Europe (i.e. central Europe) is that the authorities were allowing such anti-Semitic to go unpunished. It went on for years almost unnoticed a behaviour like this. I am not a Jew, yet nationality has nothing to do with this. If you cultivate xenophobia like this you shouldn't be surprised that one day such "diplomat's son" will ask for a list of the members of some ethnic group in the country, and some other day, who knows ..., maybe this list could be given to someone desirous to do the cleansing again?

I do wonder if you, as a Jew living in Hungary, voiced your disapproving opinion anywhere when a few months ago a highly decorated Hungarian Jewish writer (Ákos Kertész) insisted on his statement that "Hungarians are genetically subservient"...

And furthermore, since Orbán cultivates antisemtism, as we all know, in order to get more votes, what is to prevent more and more lists of, say, Jewish doctors, who might pose a threat to their patients. Jewish teachers, who might pose a threat to students, or Jewish artists, who might pose a threat to God knows what nationalistic drummed up ideals.
The latter list has in fact already taken place in Eger, which has a right wing local government, and which was taped as they were laughing and asking for lists of Jewish artists, who are not welcome in their town.
Well, as an artist who happens to be Jewish, I enjoy going to Eger, and will seek an audience with these illustrious leaders of this tolerant and charming country, to ask exactly why I am not welcome there, either personally or artistically?

May I suggest that Jewish tourists boycott Eger, to demonstrate our disparoval of their "lists" since Orbán has done nothing about this atrocious incident.

Lists such as the one in Eger already exist, even if covertly, by barring Jews rm many walks of life, inlcuding the Lauder Jewish school which somehow, mysteriously, is now never selected for national prizes.

You're lying through your teeth, too.
In fact one particular local government councellor in Eger was caught on record when she said, József Székhelyi (calling this particular person "a filthy SZDSZ Jew"), is unwanted in Eger. She was actually made to resign by Fidesz (the ruling conservative party).
The reason was because József Székhelyi, a noted Jewish actor, obscenely ridiculed the Hungarian anthem, which Hungarians especially esteem, on a SZDSZ conference a few years before ("Alliance of Free Democrats", a now defunct extremist libertarian party). He refused to apologize and he actually trumped the "anti-Semite" card.
In short, Székhelyi definitely deserves to be called names, including "filthy SZDSZ Jew", too.http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sz%C3%A9khelyi_J%C3%B3zsef

Is not part of The Freedom the personal capacity to bear and carry truth ON - unwillingly ? Do you again wish to have apparatchiks and Stazi comrades who will make paid living from preventing people to comment on absurdity , say partial truths? or their recollections of inbred lies?Do you want comfortable Sabbath whitewash ? Do you really want us to line streets where liberating forces of IMF and IDF will pass in their triumph motorcades and we will wave our flags for cowardice and slave-doom ? Do you ..? if so then get your wish.

Well, I can only assume that.
By the way, the aftermath and the reactions were really intructive. Many intellectuals, journalists, etc. of his political side tried to explain the sentence away ... and only a very few of them dared to say something like: "No, this is untolerable and unexplainable, Kertész should just make a unambigous apology without making references to his ethnicity."

Eventually, after a big pressure put on him, this was all what Kertész was willing to say:
"I correct the sentence "Hungarians are genetically subservient". Correctly there does not exist such a sentence. I was glad to learn that I was corrected by others about my missing the apology (of the Hungarian state) regarding Holocaust. Now I have closed this case."

Thank you for your prompt (and detailed) response. Actually I do not know Eastern Europe well. I was reading up on that region because I was planning my first business trip to Hungary - traveling from Kazakhstan. What really surprised me was the very violent comments coming from TE's Jewish readers. One of them went to the extent of stating that the IAF is very powerful, and that Israel should invade Hungary or, at least, "teach them a lesson". Weird stuff. We do not have many Jews in this part of Asia, but they seem to be very punitive in their tactics in West Asia (i.e., Palestine).

Here is a recent article from a far-left wing Hungarian Jewish journalist: nepszava.com/2012/11/velemeny/mikor-lep-a-nato.html
It's quite insane hate speech as a "reaction" to what MP Gyöngyösi said. I cannot translate it but Google Translate might be able to make sense of it. The author calls for NATO punitive measures.

Hungary, unlike Germany, never owned up to its role in the extermination of a half million innocent Jewish men, women and children in 1944. Not only was Hungary, as an ally of Nazi Germany, complicit in rounding up and shipping off these poor souls to the gas chambers in a matter of months (and this when they knew the war was long lost), but the Hungarian Facsists often could not wait and shot thousands into the Danube in Budapest. Hungary once upon a time had a fierce, proud independent streak and an inclusive culture. They have become a nation of whiners and opportunists that blame others for bad alliances made in two world wars and financial mismanagement.

Let me remind the readers, that Márton Gyöngyösi made his speech on the very same day when the ruling FIDESZ party used its two-thirds majority in parliament to adopt a new antidemocratic electoral system, which force most of voters to register IN PERSON only at notary offices before elections.
It's just a coincidence?
Or someone tries to avert attention from the new antidemocratic electoral system?

The so-called "antidemocratic" feature of the new system lies in that voters will have to register themselves for the elections, similarly like in the UK or in the US. That is the voter registration will be active, rather than passive. (So far it was the Hungarian state which has compiled the lists of eligable voters.)

In Poland the leader of the main and only (in fact) opposition party Jarosław Kaczyński is dreaming of arranging things in Poland exactly the way they are in Hugary, the very word "Budapest" is being used by him as a political slogan. Things don't look well in the Central Europe (one should also remember about the frequent pogroms of Roma in Slovakia and the Czech Republic).

It is _not_ comparable to voter registration in either the UK or the US, for different reasons. (e.g. the UK has no compulsory ID, it's _easy_ to register, automatic actually in my case...).

In any case, anti-Semitic comments are always made on days when something else also happens. Yes, the other thing (voter registration) is important. But the anti-Semitic sentiment is important too. There is little point taking the trouble to read a blog and comments about something you think is not important... unless you are very bored.

Can I assume, that this individual was out of a mental hospital on a day pass? This is a most troubling piece of evidence that anti-antisemitism is very much alive and well! A very sad statement about Hungary.

Sadly, you cannot assume that this charming chap is from a mental home. He reflects the growing antisemitism in Hungary.
Or to be more precise, there has always been antisemitism in Hungary, but with the Fidesz government, public expressions of it are on the increase.

While Orbán and his colleagues pretend to be shocked by such outbursts, in fact they encourage racism in order to get votes from the far right.

A Chrisitian minister friend attended a Fidesz function where he was told by an MP that "No, Fidesz aren't really antisemitic, but they need the votes".

A former Israeli ambassador to Hungary was told by one of Orbán's colleagues to "Clear out you filthy Jew" at an election night.
Orbán once wished his fellow politicians a "Jew-free goodnight" when he was a guest of Soros in New York.

An Isralei friend was recently spat on, in front of her children, by a respectable looking Hungarian "gent" when he heard her speaking Hebrew as she waited for a lift at a shopping mall in Buda.

A far-right theatre director was appointed to the lovely Új Szinház (New Theatre) and at a protest there, neo-Nazis shouted "Filthy Jews, filthy Jews" at the top of their lungs, with fists clenched in the air.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Every day, racist remarks are bandied about the streets, with no legal action of any sort taken to prevent it.

The government simply does nothing other than spew out platitudes and stock phrases about how "shocked" they are and how they "take the strongest possible measures" to prevent such things happening", and then they sit back with a smirk, and enjoy the show and the extra votes.

To Hungarians, Marton is no surprise. To the Jews, European Christians are no surprise. But with Israel being one of the strongest nation in the whole world (able to destroy any enemy, wherever it hides), the Jews are finally in a position to laugh at Christian antisemites and spit in their face with brio.

One can have lots of fun reading the ridiculous comments posted by those professional losers that would like to blame the Jewish people for all their failures. As it happens, the trick will not work any longer - shmocks! But please keep on posting: it makes my day, believe me.

Why not ? Ever heard about The letter to christian Nation? If people ask where it is coming from then all Jews would have to answer for their part of this mischief. Those non Jews they do it every day, do they not? Let people freely speak - that's best way.

Replying to a Foreign Ministry official who spoke about the 200,000 Hungarian Jews in Israel and the 200,000 Jews in Hungary:

"I am fully aware of the number of our Hungarian compatriots who live in Israel, and the number of our compatriots who are Israeli Jews and are living in Hungary. I think it would be high time, in light of the current conflict [the recent events in Gaza] to research the number of [persons] of Jewish origin, who live here, and especially those who are sitting in the Hungarian parliament and the Hungarian government, who pose a national security risk for Hungary."

Later he said that instead of "Jewish origin" he had meant "Israeli origin", that is, Israeli citizens living in Hungary, especially those occupying high ranking government positions.

Awww come on. The poor chap is only 35yo, probably adept at various agrarian duties before rising to the dizzy heights courtesy of fringe politics.
Lets just agree that this one is one too many standard deviants from the Hungarian mean!

Embarrassing for whom? The Economist, you mean? I agree wholeheartedly. :) Creating a campaign of hysteria around a grammatically garbled sentence, for wich the perpetrator has apologized, that's not what I would call responsible journalism.

And Gyöngyösi is right when he states that every state protects its interests and monitors the political activities of foreign citizens on its territory. Would the United States tolerate unregistered foreign agents in Washington?

When Mr. Márton Gyóngyiosi, MP of the Jobbik Party in the Hungarian Parliament, raises his opinions regarding the Jews in Hungary, he is not different from other politicians in the world who try to reaise their profiles by being controversial.

I suggest to Márton to try to solve Hungary's economic problems and if he is successful he wil become a popular politican. Otherwise, to the world he is only a straw politican. I am sure that so is his case in his Hungary, a politican who is trying to sell "oil snake" as a medicine for all illnesses.